Beginning ~ with a lost tooth

Making Toast: A Family Story ~ by Roger Rosenblatt, 2010, memoir (Maryland)

The trick when foraging for a tooth lost in coffee grounds is not to be misled by the clumps.

His granddaughter lost a tooth, which he had wrapped in a napkin for safekeeping.  You see what's going to happen, don't you?  It did, so now he and his wife have been searching through the kitchen trash can for twenty minutes.  My friend Jane left this book out for me to read while I'm staying at her house.  I glanced at the first page and didn't stop until page eight.  I think it will be good, in spite of the sad events that led up to the grandparents being there in the first place.

When Roger's daughter, Amy — a gifted doctor, mother, and wife — collapses and dies from an asymptomatic heart condition at age thirty-eight, Roger and his wife, Ginny, leave their home on the South Shore of Long Island to move in with their son-in-law, Harris, and their three young grandchildren:  six-year-old Jessica, four-year-old Sammy, and one-year-old James, known as Bubbies.

Long past the years of diapers, homework, and recitals, Roger and Ginny — Boppo and Mimi to the kids — quickly reaccustom themselves to the world of small children:  bedtime stories, talking toys, play-dates, nonstop questions, and nonsequential thought.

Though reeling from Amy's death, they carry on, reconstructing a family, sustaining one another, and guiding three lively, alert, and tenderhearted children through the pains and confusions of grief.  As he marvels at the strength of his son-in-law and the tenacity and skill of his wife, a former kindergarten teacher, Roger attends each day to "the one household duty I have mastered" — preparing the morning toast perfectly to each child's liking.

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